Last Friday, Donald Trump told an audience of Christian conservatives to “get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it any more. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians.”
Selling the idea to US citizens that their next vote will be their last one just doesn’t seem like a winning proposition to me, but what do I know? I’m not running to be elected dictator on day one of my second presidency.
That campaign pledge is of course what the former president told Sean Hannity last December. Hannity posed a question to Trump, who weeks earlier had called his political opponents “vermin”. “You are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked.
“Except for day one,” Trump responded. “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
Democrats rang all the alarm bells then, as they are ringing them now, responsibly warning us of our impending authoritarian future under Trump. And Trump’s supporters? They just thought he was kidding. “Of course he’s joking,” one attendee who’s been to more than a dozen Trump events told the Washington Post last December. “You can’t be a dictator with a constitutional republic.”
Whether this attendee is right isn’t the point. The issue is how one side hears jackboots marching just over the hill, ready to trample on our democracy. And the other side hears only guffaws.
And this disconnect continues, day by day, week by week, month by month. After Trump’s comments on Friday, the prominent Democrat and California representative Adam Schiff stated: “Democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism.” Meanwhile, on CNN’s State of the Union, Senator Tom Cotton dismissed any worry about Trump’s call to end voting by 2028 by saying that Trump was “obviously making a joke”.
I don’t find Trump’s jokes funny, but what’s really missing from this conversation is how much Trump’s so-called sense of humor draws from the information strategies of the contemporary far right, and how much the Democrats end up playing right into his hands.
There was a time when satire and irony belonged primarily to the left. From Jonathan Swift to Jon Stewart, humor was the knife to cut deepest into the excesses of political authority. There is thankfully still some residual humor on the left today – John Oliver comes to mind – but, as a political party, the Democrats could learn a thing or two about comic timing. (Their timing for stepping down from high office, admittedly, is sublime.) Eschewing political humor, Democrats seem comfortable opting for a moralizing politics, which truth be told can be as politically off-putting as it is well-meaning.
Today’s right wing, on the other hand, “weaponizes irony to attract and radicalize potential supporters”, according to media studies scholar Viveca Greene. She argues that today’s far right uses irony and humor “to challenge progressive ideologies and institutions”, and in so doing, the right is able “to create a toxic counter public”.
Greene is mostly concerned with the alt-right – that is to say, the more extreme elements of the right wing – but Trump’s signature contribution to this discourse is to mainstream alt-right communication strategies on to a national stage. And a kind of plausible deniability plays an enormous role in this rhetorical ecosystem.
Did Trump just call for democracy to end in the next election cycle? Oh, come on. He’s just being funny! (But yes, he did.) Did Trump guarantee to root out the “radical left thugs” that “live like vermin” in our country? That’s hilarious! (He said he will.) Did Trump promise that he will be president for three terms? Stop! My sides are aching! (You bet he did.) Will Trump “terminate” the US constitution if he’s elected? So funny! It’s like he’s saying: “You’re fired!” to a piece of paper! (It’s on the record.)
And with every rightwing excess and with each lousy joke, often at the expense of politically marginal populations (such as Muslims and immigrants), the Democrats predictably recoil in public and performative horror. Yet by doing so they only add to their perceived unfunny “wokeness” and provide more material for the political comedian who will next seek to legislate our very laughter at his own pathetic humor, as if a monstrous dad joke just became our Dear Leader.
Wouldn’t it be smarter to draw attention to Trump’s ridiculousness rather than his threats? Isn’t there some cliche out there about choosing honey over vinegar? Can the Democrats rediscover the extraordinary political power of satire before it’s too late? The demands on humor on a national stage have never been greater, and that’s no laughing matter.
Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist
